Recovered memory therapy" for eating disorders and other psychiatric conditions seeks to help the patient recover repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse and other traumatic experiences. Through this technique, it is hoped that the patient can work through these experiences to achieve relief from shame, body dissatisfaction, and symptoms of depression and eating disorders. However, this method was questioned in the recent Ramona case, where a father successfully sued two therapists and a hospital for allegedly implanting false memories of childhood sexual abuse in his bulimic daughter. The testihony and verdict in this case recall the principle of primum non nocere: Although it is clearly reasonable to consider an unproven therapeutic technique in an attempt to relieve human suffering, the potential risk of the technique-in this case the possible induction of false incest memories-must be weighed carefully against the technique's expected benefits. 0 1996 by lohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Recent years have seen the increasing use of the technique of "recovered memory therapy" for the treatment of eating disorders and other psychiatric conditions (Herman, 1992). In this technique, the therapist typically helps the patient to recover repressed memories of childhood trauma (particularly of childhood sexual abuse), so that the patient can then work through these traumatic experiences, perhaps even by confronting the perpetrator who allegedly abused her. This process, it is hoped, can lead to improvement in self-esteem, body image, depression, and the symptoms of the eating disorder itself (Kearny-Cooke & Striegal-Moore, 1994).
The recovered memory technique rests on at least two important hypotheses. The first is that childhood sexual abuse plays an important etiologic role in the development of bulimia nervosa, and hence that therapy directed at this issue will lead to improvement in symptoms. The second hypothesis is that individuals can repress memories of trau-